


Living Death

by Cocofels



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types
Genre: Abuse, Dark, Gen, Psychological Torture, Torture, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-23
Updated: 2013-05-23
Packaged: 2017-12-12 17:37:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/814194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cocofels/pseuds/Cocofels
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A look into Anders' year during solitary confinement.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Living Death

**Author's Note:**

> My second Dragon Age fanfiction. After writing Favourite Visitor, I decided that I wanted to explore more of Solitary!Anders. This fanfic deals with his year during solitary and his mental health therein. It is not an attempt to fetishize or romanticize his time and instead is solely focused on giving the reader a taste of what he might’ve had to endure.
> 
> Pre-Dragon Age: Origins.

The heavy ringing in his ears wakes him again.

Anders still can’t control his urge to scream, to call out, but his voice gives way, cracks, shrivels, and dies in his throat. He jerks himself into an upright position off the chilly, unforgiving dungeon floor, heart hammering painfully against his chest and he presses his back firmly against the callous stone walls that imprison him so, amber eyes desperately searching the heady, unyielding darkness.

He swallows hard, his body awash with the all too familiar feeling of icy sweat pricking his skin and dampening his clothes. Anders sucks in his bottom lip unknowingly, chewing on the parched, bruised skin there as he pulls his knees against his chest, wrapping his arms around to both cradle and shield himself. He doesn’t realise he’s been drooling, a thin trail of saliva left to continue its journey down the corner of his mouth.

His heart pounds faster as his thoughts inevitably come, forcing him to recount yet another nightmare, fresh with its own punishment for the same game. His mind is muddled and unfocused, straining to remember and forget in the same instant. He recalls distorted figures, demons perhaps, beckoning their desires to him, coaxing him to listen, to hear their woven tales of treachery.

It won’t be long until his concentration is lost completely, swallowed within the deep, gluttonous depths of paranoia - Anders knows this well, and he sets his jaw and furrows his brow, resisting. He remembers suffocating in his nightmare; clawing endlessly at his stone oppressors until his fingernails split, tearing off unevenly, the flesh unwinding up his long fingers. He still hears his hoarse screaming reverberating off the walls, open to all but the deafest of ears. Soon bone-grazing slices weave up his arms like wicker, blood coating and staining everything it touches. The harder he fights the faster he becomes undone, sinking quickly into his prison, rich red marring the soulless grey. 

His breath hitches, bringing him back to reality – too much, too much, too much – and as short, ragged gasps slip from his mouth, he knows with certainty that squeezing his eyes shut will do nothing to save him from being but a poor marionette within the grasp of panic.

The relentless stone walls and perennial darkness enclose in, smothering and trapping him between their clutches, Anders wrenches his eyes shut –

and half-heartedly questions if he ever really fell asleep.

 

— — — — — — — — — — — — —

Anders is busy giving the wall his best expression – namely one of saturated vacancy – while endlessly attempting to twist off a button from his scruffy rags when Karl appears in his thoughts.

At first, a soft, subtle smile ghosts over his lips as he dares to indulge in sweet memories, like the time the two had been dangerously close to Senior Enchanter Sweeney’s quarters during afterhours, things getting particularly heated, and Anders thought it would be the funniest thing if the old mage actually heard something of their rather loud encounter. Karl had chided him for days after that, telling him that they couldn’t afford to be so reckless, but Anders’ only answer had been a suggestive wiggle of his brows.

His smile is quick to fade however as he struggles to remember the last time he thought of Karl. Had it been a few hours? A few days? Weeks even? There is no sense of time in this pit of madness, even as he attempts to keep track of it. He used to etch small lines into the stone using a tiny rock, to count the days, going over and over and over each line meticulously to make sure it stayed, but it became too difficult to discern. There is no light source other than the occasional dim flicking of a torch from down the hall and even then, there have been plenty of days he sat in complete darkness. It hadn’t taken long for his tallies to crisscross, to blend and overlap each other, even if Anders couldn’t tell night from day.

Anders feels Karl slipping through his thoughts like a soft breeze and he shakes his head indignantly, insulted with himself for not being able to hold on tighter.

He wonders about how many other memories he might have let slide by. He wonders about the ones he remembers today and might forget tomorrow. It terrifies him.

He isn’t aware of the immense weight sagging in his chest until it’s too late.

Too late and he’s weeping and he can’t remember why any more.

— — — — — — — — — — — — —

“How’s the weather?” He asks, as always, when Mr. Wiggums slips through the barred entrance to say hello. The cat rubs himself against Anders’ body in adoration and Anders is unable to resist reaching out and stroking the fine fur.

He imagines, stupidly, that he’s able to soak the warm sunlight up from that fur with just a touch, or that he’s able to feel the wind playing and rustling through his hair if he rubs his fingertips through it carefully enough.

He wishes Mr. Wiggums was allowed out of the Tower once in a while, that way he could bring him back some of the raindrops on his fur too.

— — — — — — — — — — — — —

Anders’ blood is boiling, hot and molten beneath his damp skin, seeping through his pores like toxic flames. He feels the darkness in the cell consume him, painting his face with the foreboding contempt it would soon brand on his soul. He tries to stop his thoughts – he doesn’t want to think any more, not about the Templars, the Maker or the shameful lack of humanity he feels – but he can’t.

His smoldering anger is nearly unmatched, save for the churning pain in the pit of his stomach, something that is a constant. He doesn’t understand how or why the Maker condones this type of treatment, to a people whose only sin is being born with magic. Why, he wonders, does the Maker make it possible for Templars to exist, to abuse and exert their powers over so many when forgiveness is never a true, viable option anyway. He mashes his teeth together in a vexatious grind, thinking the only similarity he bore with the Ancient Tevinters was being a Mage – and yet, thousands of years later, he’s still being held accountable for their actions.

The rage in Anders’ heart swells, spewing and foaming over until he feels he can’t possibly contain it any more. His breathing is laboured, as though he’s under a great amount of pressure, his hands and body trembling no matter how hard he tries to keep steady.

All he sees is Templar blood now and he welcomes it. He imagines killing them in a crazed, lustful frenzy, splaying their guts, brains and precious arteries everywhere. He thinks about the different spells he can cast on them, the number of spells, and he can’t quite keep a dark chuckle from escaping his lips. He daydreams about fire ruthlessly blackening their ugly faces until the skin blisters, pops and curls away, the whites of their eyes peeling and sagging, torching their hair and making quick work of them.

He thinks about bright, magnificent lightning coursing through their helpless, struggling bodies, charring and splitting their very foundations apart, bursting limbs and heads away until nothing but red colours the world. His mind especially likes to indulge in their screaming, the agony and terror etched across their faces, as blinding as the spell reducing them.

He laughs at these thoughts; he thinks they’re funny.

He laughs until he can’t breathe, sides aching, tears running down his cheeks, and only after does he venture to think that maybe they weren’t so funny after all.

— — — — — — — — — — — — —

Anders talks to himself when Mr. Wiggums isn’t around. He thinks he’s great company on most days. Even on days which he doesn’t, he thinks about how his chatting still drives some of the Templars mad, which often results in a firm, “Shut up in there!” and a rattle on the cell door. He gets carried away at times and sings in low murmurs, words echoing freely off the walls and down the halls, a faint mantra.

He’s in control of something and he knows it. He latches and holds onto it as long as he can – even when the Templars stop yelling at him from outside and start coming inside to shut him up.

— — — — — — — — — — — — —

He isn’t sure how long he’s been locked away. It feels like an endless grey eternity, twisting itself countless times into him like a spiteful dagger, draining him and everything he holds close. He’s long discarded his tallies, given up on attempting to keep track, left them to stand the test of time, much like he.

He doesn’t care.

Anders wonders if the life he led before this existed at all – if he ever lived beyond these soul-breaking walls, if he ever swam across a lake to freedom, if he ever truly felt the sunshine, if he ever knew a man named Karl, if he ever spoke to anyone other than himself. He dwells on it until he loses his focus and feels it crumble away from the bleak, dusty corners of his mind.

He isn’t bothered.

The cell door swings open suddenly, metal clanging loudly against stone, and Anders jolts, tenses and lifts his head. His eyes ache at the intrusion of the gleaming lantern and he blinks several times to keep the tears from gathering.

“Not so chatty any more, eh?” He hears a gruff, snide voice slide over his ears. “Get up. You know what time it is, Mage.“ Anders recoils instead, clams in, presses himself back against the hard stone and leans away. A sickening feeling rises from his stomach, makes the hair on his arms stand, knots its way into his chest. He doesn’t know what time it is, he never knows what time it is.

“I said get up,” Sharp, steel gauntlets reach and grasp his handcuffs hard, yanking so that bitter metal digs into the cuts already encircling his wrists. He keeps from making a pained noise as he reflexively struggles, twists away from the Templar and pushes all of his weight down, towards the floor. The man reacts quickly, comes at him again, secures his cuffs and attempts to pull him to his feet.

His heartbeat roars in his ears as he fights the other off to the best of his ability, unable to hear anything other than the erratic thumping of his heart. He rolls onto his stomach, refuses to let himself be pulled from the ground, clinging to it as he attempts to worm his way out of the Templar’s hold. He sees fast movements happen - too fast - and he can’t tell if the Templar hits him or not, only that the other finally backs off.

Anders crawls quickly to the nearest wall, presses his back to it. His heart is still wild in his chest but his ears have cleared a little and he’s just able to catch the tail-end of the Templar’s words.

“—by me if you don’t want to bathe; it’s not like it’ll make much of a difference, you filthy animal, you.” He watches in dismay as another Templar pops his head around the corner, peeking into the cell.

“Hey, what’s all the noise going on in here? He giving you trouble?”

“Bastard won’t let me get ahold of him long enough to take him outside. Been a while since anyone’s let him out to bathe.”

The other Templar disappears for a moment before returning. He’s holding a bucket when he does, which he places into the first Templar’s hands. “Here, this works well enough.” The other looks down into the bucket once before striding over without hesitation and swings the bucket fluidly over Anders.

He makes a sharp, startled gasp as ice cold water soaks him, goes straight through his rags and right to his bones. This isn’t the first time they’ve done this, he knows this well enough, but it never gets any easier.

As the two walk off, laughing among themselves, laughing about him, laughing about Mages, the hatred in him simmers.

— — — — — — — — — — — — —

A great idea comes to him in one of his clearer thoughts, if he has any of those left.

Anders knows that if they let him out, if they haven’t forgotten about him, he’s going to run again.

No, this is not a new idea or a great idea, he rationalises, this was always the plan.

Just like all of the other times.

Nothing changed, except maybe his craving to feel the sun against his skin.


End file.
